Hi, I develope Mac software using Xcode, I am trying to create a Snowleopard OS the will work on PowerPC, I would like you to ask the community to contribute their aid. I hope to show the world, that PPC can still kick some windows ass

I’m with you all, If it’s not broke don’t fix it! My PPC works just fine, however THE POWERS THAT be are trying to convince us, that we need to UPGRADE! how about that, I know how to read schematic, schelogic , some editing video production, I believe that if we can let the ABC Network know that we a force maybe the wont exclude a million PPC users because we dont have a computer to run ADOBE’S flash! maybe they will do what NBC and CBS have done! Remember the late Steve Jobs and Adobe fell out over what he considered to be a garbage program! If I can be of any help, I will be happy to support the cause!
THANKS!

I love this site i have an g5 model a1047 desktop and if possible i would love a version of snow leopard for my machine bc i need the new version of garageband…not the newest version but the version that came on snow leopard i need a fix baaaaad lol ..any suggestions

i am new to power mac-i have a power mac g5 quad core with two huge media vaults ,both vaults have 5 ,250 gig hd,my g5 has a 1.5 terabyte and a 250 gig hd,planning on selling but dont know what to ask,running 10.5.8

there is another sort of “community”, a guy who hacks the adobe flash player and make it work on PPC, i don’t know his name, but if you google adobe flash player 11.5 ppc, you will be able to download a copy and to watch video AND play different games ( not all of them but most games will work ) on facebook! I installed this hackplayer and everything is still working!!!

hi it’s nice to see a site dedicated to powerpc now days i personally am a pc gamer built my own gaming pc got a 300 $ graphics card in my machine what you would expect i hate modern apple and the choices they make but for some reason or another i have a really big soft spot for powerpc i don’t know why maybe because it’s different then mainstream intel or amd the underdog the odd one out but i even got over my grudge with apple to buy a powermac g5 because i wanted a powerpc and there are not many other options besides a ppc mac out there i really enjoy tinkering with it and installing Amiga os and universal binary Linux os’s and such i have also learned that pre 2005 apple was an awesome company there product were made better and the genuinely had a aspect to them that was uniqe and made people say hwy that thing looks awesome were did ya get it infact my of course a custom gaming pc does the same thing but that’s a different story i even use the powermac g5 as a secondary machine honestly if apple haden’t gone the way they did with intel and some other bad choices they made i would probally suport mac today bye the way my powermac g5 has 1 gig of ram a 1.6 gigahertz processor a 64 meg of vram geforce 5600 ultra and i put a 500 gig seagate drive in it i went on a bit of a tangent hear but powerpc rocks let’s keep it alive power to you man

I manage to watch or download videos without flash. like jobs did I regard adobe as a menace. but the game playing is a problem, esp since I took the trouble to remove flash from my ibook g4. I still love this laptop. apple’s new laptop keyboards suck. My box has 1,5 gig and only a 50 gig hard drive-but thats what external drives are for. I’d love my ibookppc to act as a media server too, streaming from my intell 2007 mac mini our bedroom to the big screen in our living room. How do you do it? signed mr. not so geeky as some.

Ok all PPC users. In need of some guidance, and fell upon this blog/thread searching for some type of help. I just got a G5 from a bud that used it for music studio stuff. Well he has since wiped it out and reinstalled another OS on here. The problem is I’m reading 10.5 is the highest available OS on this system. But when I go into the about this Mac its running OS X 10.6.8. I’m using tenfourfox for internet, but cant not get much else to work properly, like Safari. The question is, Do I need to find an actual disc to reinstall 10.5 or is downgrading even available? And how is this OS even running on this Mac? Wouldn’t it have failed upon install?

hi AL
You wrote : ” its running OS X 10.6.8 ” : are you sure you didn’t read 10.6.8 for 10.5.8 (which is the last update of MacOS X Leopard) ?.
Otherwise are you sure you got a G5 ? What type of computer ?
Anyway, after booting up, look for About This Mac under the Apple menu (left end of the menu bar) and read the OS X installed on your Mac and the type of processor. You can go further clicking the More Info button (downwards in the About This Mac window) and click the Software and Hardware titles in the left column to get detailed infos on your Mac.
Fred
P.S. : I’m currently using Tiger on an iMac G5.

Hi 🙂
I have a 12” iBook G4 late 2004 loaded with 1.5gb RAM and 1.2ghz and OS X Leopard and it never fails to deliver!
I recently installed the Yosemite theme, A transparent finder bar mod and a two finger scrolling kext. When I plug it in to my monitor I shut the lid and hide the iBook under my desk with a keyboard and mouse plugged in.
In conclusion, it works just as well as an intel Mac and runs iWork and iLife Great!

PowerPc Computers are the best Computers in the world in my opinion XD

Excellent site – using a PM 2.3 Dual Core, with a 2TB drive and 7800GTX graphics card, nothing I can’t do on here so far and crazy that this machine could be unusable in the next year or two…

Main apps I use are :-
TenFourBird for email
TenFourFox for browsing
Office 2008
Skype (only 2.8 but have to use this for work)
Spotify (old version but works fine)
MacTubes for Youtube viewing
Evernote
Turbo.264
VLC
Transmission for torrents (old version but only just behind current)
Folx – Download Manager
Some games – Quake 4, Civilisation IV, Command & Conquer Generals, Doom 3 etc.

hi, i find that TenFourFox doesn’t alow me to stream videos at all so i can only do this on Safari and even on this it lags a lot and is in very poor quality. have you ever had this problem or have you found a way to overcome the obstacle? i have a G5

I use safari 4.1.3 with osx10.4.11 G4 dual 1MGHz to view u-tube works fine, but only if i stick to 360 res . if i go to 480 itstarts to stick but I think thats b’cos i’m on a free wifi low speed network

Common guys, don’t use a PPC web browser anymore for youtube. TenFourFox totally disabled flash for a reason. If you want to watch youtube, try YouView, it works great on all my G4-G5 macs, and is not slow or laggy.

I have, but everyone turns their nose up at it for some reason I cannot understand:
I run a G5 Tower with twin 1GB processors, two 1TB HD Internal plus a bunch of stuff attached via FireWire, USB and whatever works – the answer to online streaming is REALPLAYER 12.0.1(gold,standard download from RealNetworks.
You’re all gonna think I’m daft, but I have been able to remove practically all flash and adobe from my machine and I get by just fine. With RealPlayer I often watch HuffPostLive streaming down the worst connection imaginable at 480p.
Also stream movies from my favourite sites, up and download with it, you can convert with it (though it is REALLY annoying every time you open the converter and it tells you it works better with Intel – EVERY time. It’s been a proper lifeline as first Apple drop us then as everyone eventually follows, support disappears etc etc. I mean, the browser is literally as basic as it can be, barely more than a window with a back and forth button, but it is faster than anything else I’m running (Safari 5.0.6 and Firefox in either 3.6.28/whatever or in a compatible-ish 4.01beta and RealPlayer runs tings round them both. It also ties VLC to whatever you’re browsing with really efficiently – you grab your FFox VLC plugin or similar from http://org.videolan ‘s plugin section. You then use RealPlayer to go to where you wanna stream, for pure vitesse really, then as you find a video to watch, right-click the link to COPY THE LINK LOCATION, which’ll obviously be a lot longer than you see in the browser, pop to VLC advanced open file, goto Network, paste, hit return.
There is some jiggery-Pokery in setting up the connections in your mac that allow VLC to receive etc but other than that it’s so simple and effective a child can do it. Ok, to be honest, a 12-yr-old friend of my daughter showed me how to do it.
Also, there’s TOAST. Good old can’t-burn-for-toffee TOAST; I’m running one of the v.10+ Titanium and the Media Browser, located as a tiny little icon I. The top right of what’s usually the movie list section: if you have the ability to “open link”, “copy link” and paste as RealPlayer does, open a clickable link, or in the case of (my main test source for streaming because it’s on 24/7 – and Minkovski rocks) HuffPostLive, even TOAST can capture what’s coming down at you. RealPlayer itself can and does stream, but it’s a little too unsturdy for big jobs, movies, and it’s very particular about what it will and won’t, to the point of confusion , but give it a go; we need all the weapons at our disposal !
I mention thus last because I’ve not quite got it down pat yet, but the old MPEG StreamClip (I believe the last for PPC is 1.9.3b2 release/2009). It has a similar functionality to RealPlayer – is its a bit hit and miss, but trial and error brings good results, and I’m sharing a 1gb broadband package in a house if ten tenants, most of whom seem to have ps4 and bullying Xbox too…I get a DL speed of between 500kbps-1000kbps on a daytime when everyone else is out.
Personally, I still think streaming is overrated anyway. I get pretty much the same level if quality with my iPhone in the basement as I do through the g5. Plus, with the corporate fatcats elbowing their way into the data transfer market they missed out on over the past 20 years as people left landlines and went mobile (AND stopped talking and started going data-only ), recent deals the US Gov has forcibly made [the TPP for instance] has ensured people will be encountering data usage limits more and more frequently, plus line-throttling and IP restrictions imposed more than willingly by the Networks with the worst customer service records (usually), EVERYONE’s going to be encountering streaming issues. As as S.Korea moves on from its pedestrian 380mbps speeds up towards the gigabytes, Western companies are investing in keeping OUR data corralled and monitored and more than anything else – expensive.

I hear some talk of it being possible to upgrade the processor. Why don’t you give that a go if it’s possible and get some super awesome processor or something and make that powerhouse of yours a REAL PowerMac.

For all of you who have problems with youtube playback or hacked flash player versions: You should definitely check out the youtube HTML5-test programme: http://www.youtube.com/html5
works flawless in any webkit-based browser (works well in safari 5.0.6 and even better in roccat) on my 12″ G4 powerbook.

A category “still using my ppc” would be fine: people could tell how they are still using powermac’s nowadays and what they can still do with it… May-be with some pictures of the surviving PPC-monuments: flashy G3 Clamshell’s, beautiful G4 iMacs, wonderful iBooks, great G5’s…

I was thinking to create a menu for pictures of powerpc “my office set-up thing” so people could send pictures of old powerpc machines and we could post like the ones we can find on flickr. Anyways it’s a good idea. Thank you!

Hi, I’m still running an old mirror door dual-boot g4, and gradually things on the internet are failing!! I hate the idea of throwing it away, and I can’t afford a new mac. Any ideas? The upgrade guys have been very discouraging so far…

I’m using my PowerMAC G5 Quad (8GB RAM, 1.5TB HD, 23″ Cinema HD) as everyday machine for last 7 years. Doing everything on this computer – daily work (browsing, emails), connecting to the office (Citrix), watching HD movies, decoding and creating HD home videos, copying old movies from VHS tapes and creating DVDs, composing music using Logic software and Finale 2007, creating documents with MS Office 2008, working with pictures using Aperture and Corel Painter, scanning old films with VueSCAN (Canon Canoscan FS4000 and Nikon Coolscan 5000ED), creating drawings with Corel DRAW and PhotoShop, communicating with Skype and iSight camera, and many-many other smaller tasks.
This machine is so powerful – even after 7 years I do not feel like it is slow.
I’m sure Apple will do everything to make me buy a new Mac Pro some day.
Oh well…

A Quad core G5!? I’ve been using my single-cpu 1GHz G4 for the past 5+ years for everything you listed, and more (although I use Word 2004 because Word ’08+ are shyte). I also use Carrara 7 and LIghtwave 8 w/ no problems. The only thing this machine really can’t do is export h264 above 320×240 (way too slow). Of course, it’s a wimp compared to a good G5.

Hey Taras – Good for you – I am also using my G5 PPC Quad and yes its FAST – does everything I ask of her and she never fails to deliver. If she was not as fast I would have bought a Intel 12 core – but at the moment theres no need. Great web site, only found it today – so I am going to spread the news – THANK YOU for putting this sit together
What ever you do keep your PPC G5 going – theres plenty who know them inside out.

Im sporting a good old MDD G4 1.25Ghz single with 10.5 and I actually have no issues for what I do with it.Actually I dug it out of the closet and used it to replace my intel imac because the wintel macs suck in my opinion.They run to hot and I have had nothing but issues with it.So back to the G4 that never let me down.LONG LIVE POWERPC THE REAL TRURE COMPUTER!Also Morph OS which is based on Amiga OS is breathing all new life in to these true work horses.You should check it out.

I tested MorphOS 3.5.1 on my powermac G5 dual 2.0 with ATI 9800 Pro video card. Was very impressed with that OS, its high quality, and the ui is as pretty as leopard. My only complaint on it is the cost, its just too expensive, so I pass on it.

I think I’ll have to visit this link more often.
I’m getting an E-bay Power Mac quad core
(dual processor) in this weekend. Want to see how a top end Apple PPC G5 will let me do whatever I may think of including watching streamingovies on the Internet. The iMac G5 seems to have some issues with connection speed or buffering video. I’ll play and maybe post results.

1. Leopard Mail, iCal and Addressbook are wonderful productivity tools. You can use Syncmate (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26317/syncmate) if you need to synchronize them with you Gmail account – that’s also how you can your PowerMac in the office and your PowerMac at home perfectly synchronized! If you like, you can link to do’s on this configuration, using Anxiety http://www.anxietyapp.com/ – However Texteditor is a fine tool to keep your notes tracked. Spotlight can find anything back, anyway.
2. Sharing printers with Windows users? Try Gutenprint (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/9055/gutenprint) – most network or standalone printers will start talking to your PowerMac!
3. You need to exchange Office-documents. Get Office 2008:mac. It’s not very fast, but it does what it has to do. If you don’t need XML (.docx, .xlsx…) then buy a copy of Office X:mac (2001) of Office 2004:mac. Both are much faster, but you would need an Open XML-converter to read the newest documents. Info on Open XML-converter and Office on http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads – You can find copies of older versions on eBay and other sites.
4. The Internet is great on Safari and Firefox 3.6 (http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html).
5. Need to make a website for your company? iWeb is a dream, even without Mobile Me. Using Cyberduck (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/8392/cyberduck) you can upload to any provider. iWeb 2.04 is fast on Powermac’s, iWeb 3 is ok but slower (but then you don’t need Cyberduck). To purchase iWeb you need to get a cd-copy of iLife ’08 or ’11. Both are no longer on sale but eBay can help you out. Yousing HTML-widgets you can even integrate Google Analytics or whatever extra function.
6. You wouldn’t like to loose important data. TimeMachine is an easy solution, but it’s limited to backing up only one Mac. If you want to continue some work at home, than keeping synchronized your Macs at home and in the office is easier with SyncTwoFolders (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22644/synctwofolders). On the website of the developer you can get a version for Powerpc. It can use anything, external hard disk (even formatted FAT32), pen drives, server storage, …
7. Wouldn’t like somebody else to use your Mac? Make sure you have obliged login, and I would recommend setting Filevault. Both can be reached in the System Preferences.
8. Viruses are not likely to attack your PowerMac, but if it would make you feel safer you can install Sophos (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35710/sophos-anti-virus-for-mac-home-edition).
Would you feel your PowerMac is a little slow? You might buy a second hand PowerMac G4 dual or QuadCore G5. It will cost you max. 300 dollar and it runs Leopard faster than newer Macs would run Lion. Extra memory can help you getting better performances.
Old PowerMacs are still capable of doing great things in the office, sure they can!

Having an old Mac with a limited number of Gigs on the hard disk? You can trim your apps and system and throw away unnecessary Intel-code as well as languages you don’t use…http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/
It can save you hundreds of Megs on your machine! But: make sure you use the correct version (there’s different versions for Tiger and Leopard). In my experience, trimming Tiger is a bit more tricky then trimming Leopard. I would advise you to exclude the System Folder (see settings of Monolingual).

Did you with from Tiger to Leopard? Do you miss rounded screen angles? Your nostalgia can be healed with a small tool: http://manytricks.com/displaperture/
At this moment there is still a PPC-version available on their website.

Is your Finder a bit slow? You could try to put more RAM-memory. But if that doesn’t help, it could be your graphic card that has problems with graphical effects in Leopard. You might like to disable them to make things happen a bit faster:
Open a terminal session and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true
killall Finder
Did you do an upgrade and you want to enable graphical effects in Finder, then type:
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool false
killall Finder

Modifying the looks of Finder and OSX? OSX is great as it is, but if you want you can use Xspinner (made for Leopard), Onyx or TinkerTool (look for the version fit for your OSX-version).
Each of them has other possibilities. Some of them are great.
PS: most of these changes you can do with terminal commands as well, but that is more complicated of course 🙂

Leopard is nice. It has more possibilities than Tiger and even on older G4-machines, it is not really slower, that is if you leave out unnecessary extras.

How you can install it?

First determine what kind of G4 you have. Take a look in “about this Mac” (Apple menu) and control processor speed. If it is lower than 800 Mhz you will need to use LeopardAssist as an extra first step. Leopard seems to be working on machines under 800 Mhz, but it won’t run as smooth as you would like it to do.

Step 1 – The magic box

Ok, you have found a wonderful shiny purple box 10.5 on eBay. Great news! Open it and take out the DVD. Put it into your Mac and click on the icon “Mac OS X-installation” . Click on the button RESTART.
Your Mac will restart. Booting is slower from a dvd, that is perfectly normal (dvd doesn’t read as fast as a hard disc!).
Choose your Main Language.

Step 2 – Prepare your hard drive

When you see “Welcome”, do NOT click on “Go on”! Instead, in the menu on top of your screen, choose “Auxiliary programs” and choose “Disk Utility”.
On the left side, choose your hard drive (not the partition underneath it) and choose “partition”. Only one partition is ok, but two is better. You can keep your data on the second partition. If you would like to reinstall your Mac, you can keep the second partition and hence won’t loose your data!
If your hard drive is not big, you can install Leopard on a partition of 10GB. After cleaning (for instance throw away Intel-code and exotic languages), Leopard takes only 5GB on your hard drive.
Format both partitions as “Mac Journaled”.
Leave Disk Utitlity

Step 3 – Perform a clean install

After leaving Disk Utility, you are back in the installer. Choose “Custom installation”. Check OUT Printer drivers, Language files, X11, Extra fonts…
You can later install the latest printer drivers from the side of the printer manufacturer. Exotic languages (and their Extra fonts) you will never use take a lot of place on your hard drive. X11 is unnecessary since most apps are native for Mac now.
Click INSTALL. You can skip controlling the DVD. Now take a few coffees or have a meal. It takes about 35 minutes for this custom install. When the Mac is ready it will ask for a install.

Step 4 – Update your system

Updating is easy when you use “Software-update” in the Apple menu.
If your internet access is not to fast, then it might be handy to keep updates on a DVD or pendrive. In that case it’s important to know which updates you should download from the Apple-site to make your golden pendrive or DVD:

1. MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.8
This update takes about 20 minutes. It might – in some cases – freez on 4 minutes before the end. In that case, press powerbutton for 4 seconds and restart, the update is ok. You need to restart twice.

2. SecUpd2011-004
It takes about 5 minutes. In some cases can freeze restart. The power button can help you out, no big deal.
Mind: there is a SecUpd2012-003 but it does NOT work on Powerpc-Macs.

Now you will still have to a few things to get your Mac fully functional:
9. Set-up you e-mail accounts
10. Set-up your address book: if you have an archive, just import it.
11. If you have a google account, get syncmate 1.2 and upgrade it till 2.04. Now you can set up synchronisation for iCal with your Google agenda. Nice!
12. Install your apps (iLife, Office, Audacity, …)
13. After installing your apps, you can run Monolingual again. It will get you extra free space again by trimming out languages and INTEL-code from your apps.

One last optimization you can do, IF you have multiple hard disks on the mac your installing to. After the install, all updates, tweaks, and monolingual are done, use disk utility to “restore” your boot drive to another hard disk. This will recopy the entire install there, and in the process DEFRAG it! After that, erase the original boot drive, or better yet, “zero” it (this has the benefit of detecting disk sector errors). Then, manually switch the hard disks around, or just boot to this secondary drive, and restore the OS back to the original drive after erasing it. You only would need to do this once, since the majority of OSX files, probably more than 98% will never be moved again, and will stay defragged.

What are the best Mac PPC-compatible iCloud alternatives? Dropbox is fine, but only 2GB free storage. Skydrive is bigger but only Intel-app available. Does anybody know the biggest Finder-integrated cloud-storage for powermacs?

I’ve been trying Quicksilver lately and am now starting to like it as an alternative to the Dock. My Dock is usually stuffed full of apps. Anyway, I was looking for a will to kill the dock. There’s a way to do it in the Terminal, but it kills Exposé and the App Switcher. I use CMD+Tab a lot to switch between apps so I was hoping to avoid this. You can also use Tinkertool to move the Dock to the top and then hide it. This has the “effect” of removing the dock, but there is a thin line up near the menu bar that will still activate the Dock. I’ve done this before and always got annoyed when going to use a menu bar item and the Dock activated.

So, I did some searching and found Dock Gone. It’s PowerPC of course, but you need Leopard. It does exactly what I want, but also allows me to reactivate the Dock if I want to. Here’s the link:http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31188/dock-gone

I found an interesting website: http://allaboutstevejobs.com/ – it has links to the Keynotes where Steve presents the new Powermac G3, G4, the Cube; the Clamshell iBook, etc. all these revolutionary new Powermacs we are still using nowadays.

Hi , a have a PowerPC ibook G4, 1.2gb upgraded ram
i still love my ibook and i upgraded it to leopard
but my only problem with this is i can’t play
MP4, and MKV movie files even if i’ve used some players such as, VLC , MPlayer, Xine and other codec.
-is there any way we could overcome this thing? this really would give me
a chance not convert those video files into AVI, which took alot of time
of just getting what i want.

Hello Levi, if you use Perian (see Perian.org) you will be able to play all possible formats (including MKV…) in QuickTime. Only WMV (owned by Microsoft) cannot be played with Perian, but MS is offering a free solution for that: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/17787/flip4mac-wmv-player
I have an iBook G4 (1.33, 512MB) and I can see any kind of video. I use it everyday, even for making websites in iWeb…

Hi I have a PowerMac G4 MDD dual 1GHz and was wandering if anyone new the best version of screenflow for the PPC, I can get in contact with telestream to get an old version but don’t know which one to get, I have an ATI Readeon 9000 pro graphics card with 64MB graphics ram and 1 GB DDR SDRAM

Hello everyone.
It really makes me happy to see you all here, still working on your PowerPC Macs 🙂

I found this website sometime ago, and thought I would be able to get some information regarding PPC architecture etc…

I’ve just bought the PowerPC G4 MDD 1.25 DP with FireWire800. I do also possess PCI SATA ACard (IDE-to-SATA) and WD External SATA case (with FireWire800).
My question to you, guys, is: What type of connection for booting drive would be better? External FireWire800 or PCI SATA ACard? And by “better”, I mean faster of course 😉 It’s not like I can’t check it myself, but it would make me less trouble ;] (installing system on both drives etc…)

Another thing, is anyone here using MorphOS on his/her machine? How it looks like with performance and applications accessibility? Is it worth the case?

As many know, between 1992 and 2005, there was a great deal of good software made for the PowerPC chip on the Mac, even before the advent of Mac OS X.

Unfortunately, the PowerPC consortium (AIM: Apple, IBM & Motorola) was unable to get the speed up, at the same time as getting the heat and electricity use down, especially for laptops. But some may also know that the PowerPC line didn’t end with Apple’s withdrawal. IBM has continued to develop and refine the POWER line, mainly for mainframes.

Does anyone know if PowerPC software might be compatible with any of IBM’s later hardware, running the very fast POWER6 and POWER7 chips?

You probably will find in some blogs or torrents sites. But it’s ilegal to do that. You can try eBay or Craigslist, most of the time is very expensive around $150 but sometimes you can find crazy deals, I got mine for $40 with all original box and everything.

There are cheaper offers if you browse private internet selling sites (less professional than eBay, Google for “second hand mac software”). I bought a full Tiger-package (orginal DVD + license) for 25 dollars and a five-license Leopard DVD-package for 20 box!

I’d try to purchase a second-hand original disc. Note that Tiger (10.4) runs the Classic environment, whereas Leopard (10.5) does not. If you’ve a lot of OS9 apps then you’ll want Tiger, if not, go for Leopard.

If you would need a classic app on Leopard, you can use Mini vMac: http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/
It runs classic os till 7.5 and it has a PPC-version.
However: most Classic apps have OSX-counterparts. Although I had nostalgic feelings to Classic OS for a long time, I haven’t used it for a few years now (since I switched from Tiger to Leopard).
PS: why not run Classic OS on an older Mac? It returns the whole nostalgic feeling… 🙂
All necessary Classic downloads can be found on http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312?viewlocale=en_US

If you need a fresh install of your operating system, you can go to a MAC Store. They will do it for free! all you must do is call and make an appointment. They will verify by email. I have 3 MAC’s, 1 Tiger G4, and 2 Leopard G4’s. I brought all 3 in for clean install, as I was not first owner of any.

Here’s a question that’s not necessarily PowerPC specific, but does hark back to pre-OS X days:

Does anyone know if there exists a utility for OS X that allows cascading menus from the Apple menu, to sub-folders? It woudn’t have to go as many as 10 layers down in order to be hugely useful. Just like in the good old days!

Hi there Clive, I’m looking forward to post about this application called HimmelBar and I think it does what you are looking for, take a look here: (it does work on Tiger or later and above) – http://softbend.free.fr/himmelbar/

Here’s a learn by experience item that I’ve not seen online anywhere. As an apple fan and a huge lover of iPods and relatives, I had wanted an iPhone 4 (had a 3G and 3GS) but was a little worried due to the requirements listed as follows
Syncing with iTunes on a Mac requires:
Mac: OS X v10.6.8 or later
Of course the PPC Macs only go up to OSX 10.5.8. This delayed my purchase until I was given an iPhone 4 which required some repair. Being the explorer I am , of course I had to plug it in and see what happens.
I can say that the iPhone 4 and 4S sync via USB cable (but not wirelessly) as well as update. I have tried to get someone at Apple to confirm , deny or comment on this but the best I’ve got when saying it works is that snobbish “good for you” remark. For me , this working has kept me on PPC as I may have wandered to the dark side and got a cheap computer running an inferior OS just for iPhone sync.

SCSI: belatedly, I have a need to transfer data from SCSI ZIP and external drives onto a PowerPC (the G5 Quad). The adaptors for SCSI to USB that I’ve seen on eBay and Amazon are rare and expensive. Can anyone suggest the best way to effect such transfer please?

For anyone trying to fun 10.4 on a G3:
Setup Shadow-Killer ( http://unsanity.com/haxies/shadowkiller )
as a login item!
Greatly increases speed and usability on 400-600MHz G3 systems, by reducing the Quartz-Compositor burden when there is not enough video ram to run Quartz Extreme.

Also, can’t watch a particular video on Youtube or other such sites with your G3? Nab it with Download helper and then convert it with FLV Crunch! It can actually convert most web-video formats to MP4 in no time, which you can then watch in Quicktime or VLC! Just remember to keep the resolution below 360 (240 tall is very smooth). You can get the Program at:http://flvcrunch.awardspace.us/

Another option something I did 12 years ago is to flash a radeon 7000 to work on the blue and white this requires a pc to install a dummy rom first but you can flash the 64 meg cards to they never made one for mac works like a charm dvd playback to

This is an excellent site! It’s great to see there’s so people using these computers. I’ve had my imac g4 800ghz 17″ w/10.4.11 since 2006 and there’s never a day that goes by that I’m not amazed with it. Windows based PCs ruined my interest in computers for many years, the Apple experience for me has been a different world, I will probably use the g4 forever. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll upgrade to a 1.25ghz on the next one.

Hi There. I came across this site in my desperate attempt to find a writer app for my Mac. But I don’t have any money to purchase Apple Apps. And I was wondering if you could help me find Free Similar Writer Apps. If you can I would deeply appreciate it! Thank you

And it is possible to insert languages of the more recent Intel-version (which had more languages) into the Powerpc-version. Click right on the intel-version “show package contents” and then go to “contents/Resources”. Copy the desired language folders and paste them into the same folder of the older PPC-version. It works!

Here with lots of gear (intel and Linux ) and one of them is my MDD 1,25Ghz 2Gb OSX10.5 ( obviously power suppply crashed and ATX was adapted ). Still making music with it. And now I buyed an Apple G4 firewire 800 fo spares or fix a dual processor… will see.

I run a PowerBook G4 as a server with OS X Server 10.4 above my dad’s 7600 (His first computer) with OS 9.1. Next to my server I have a i7 June 2012 MacBook Pro where I do my main work. (It’s the only intel in the house)!

Morning! I’ve followed your site for some time now, and decided it’s time to get the ole mac mini a go again and bring it back from College days. I have a 1.42 GHz PowerPc Mac Mini that I just upgraded ram from 512mb to 1gb through OWC, and I was wondering with the OEM hardrive I was wondring if it’s worth it at the moment to get a 2.5″ IDE Internal SSD? I know you cant upgrade the grahipcs card, but really thinking about switching to a different OS for video playback reasons like Morph OS, what do you recommend?

hi there ryan s glad you want too upgrade too a 2.5 inch solid state drives you wont be sorry i have a macbook air with a 2.13 ghz duo core cpu 4 gb ram and a 256 gb solid state flash drive running yosemity ox with about 40 widgets and dash board widgets plays you tube fine and also play mac halo too just fine on a optional external dvd cd drive i have about 140 gb free storage and my 128 gb iphone 6 plus has 103 gb free storage statred out 110 gb free storage also have a 24 inch imac with a 2.13 ghz cpu 3 gb ram and a 750 gb hard drive my macbook air is 4 too 10 times faster it no constest

hi there ryan s glad you want too upgrade too a 2.5 inch solid state drives you wont be sorry i have a macbook air with a 2.13 ghz duo core cpu 4 gb ram and a 256 gb solid state flash drive running yosemity ox with about 40 widgets and dash board widgets plays you tube fine and also play mac halo too just fine on a optional external dvd cd drive i have about 140 gb free storage and my 128 gb iphone 6 plus has 103 gb free storage statred out 110 gb free storage also have a 24 inch imac with a 2.13 ghz cpu 3 gb ram and a 750 gb hard drive my macbook air os way faster on in seconds boot up time vs almost 30 seconds too 1 miniute boot up with imac with the hard drive shut down in seconds not 15 seconds too 30 seconds on imac with hard drive

I doubt between the G4 and G5 precesor for a powerpc to use it at home,i still have a ibook g4 1,2 Ghz, but now i want to change my everyday PC for a MAC (less for playing) and i dont want to go to Intel chips. So i am considering to buy and old powerpc to use it everyday and perhaps as file server too. I am afraid of g5 for the power comsumption, and they are twice expensive than the g4. what could you recomend me?

I don’t have yet but in my opinion PowerMac G5 is very strong machine, it’s a workhorse to use day-by-day. PowerBook G4 would be my second option because they are easy to walk around, also very strong. iMac G4 is the most beautiful Mac. iMac G5 I’m not quite sure, I heard they are not reliable machine to use day-by-day, many people said that soon or later they stop working. 🙂

one of my priorities is the power consumptium, and as i have read is the blogs are quite hight on g5, and less in g4. all machine i am looking for a towers, no laptops or imacs.
perhaps a dual g4 would be a right choice.

There are two ways to look at this. • On the safe side, a dual processor G4 tower does use much less energy than a typical G5, tends to be much more reliable and often offers OS9 boot-ability for those that need it. • On the other side, a quad-core G5 is a BEAST. It is also logical that the majority of systems that are prone to failure, have probably done so already. If you can find a late model G5 from the original owner that still works, It will likely continue to. I took the first option with a dual G4 and it is all the system I need for quite a while (especially because I still use OS 9 a lot). The main point against G5s, as I see it, is that other than the faster processor, there is not really much software out there that can take full-use of the G5 specific architecture. I have yet to find a G5 app that won’t run pretty well on a powerful G4.

I recently bought a clean second hand G5 Quad. After a few hiccups its working beautifully. I bought wrong kind of extra memory: it needs to be unbuffered, also I managed to format a new hard drive for Case Sensitive (wrong!) but I rigged it up to a little used big old monitor and it’s everything I wanted.

I had heard about the fan noise and the power consumption, but having had some experience now, I can say that this is likely only to be an issue if you work it really hard.

P.S. Avoid Early G5s, Most cannot be upgraded to better CPUs and performance is often pretty disappointing. There are really only 3 worth having – Quad 2.5, Dual 2.7 or Dual 2.3 (this last model is often considered the most reliable).

ok, thanks a lot for your reply, so i think that ill look for a powermac g4, perhaps a sigle or a double? what would you chose? which are the differences between models? is any way to make them silence? dont wanna my room full of fans!

The Dual 1.0/1.25/1.42 MDDs or Dual 1.0 Quicksilver 2002s are Very Nice Systems. If you are only running OSX, you can drop in a Radeon 9800 pro (128MB) or Geforce 7800GS (128/256MB) and get full Core-Image Support. This ebay auction tells what adjustments need to be made to make 8x AGPs work in an 4x AGP Mac – but it is easy, I just cut the leads going to the two pins for my sister’s Mac and it worked great (an Xacto Blade was perfect). http://www.ebay.com/itm/110996734246 If you need to boot in OS9 (or ADC monitor support), then the Geforce 4600 Ti (128MB) is the best and actually pretty comparable to the Radeon, but just doesn’t do Core Image. Whichever one you get, just remember to keep an eye out for a spare power-supply as these are the only real weakness on these older systems. Upgrades like USB 2.0 cards can be kinda hit and miss – However, I have installed three of these http://www.ebay.com/itm/251207525658 with no problems. Also, for WiFi, avoid Airport/Airport Extreme cards as they are somewhat spendy for what they are and slow by modern standards. The Iogear Universal is really the best for the money now http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UAKCS6 and it does full 150M ‘N’ Wireless. Best of Luck in your New Mac!

so better to purchase and MDD or a Quicksilver?
after 10 years with my ibook never been interested in powerPCs till i discover few blogs like this one, i fell like a child having fun learning again computering.

They are both GREAT machines. Especially if you opt to go with a newer videocard like the Radeon 9800 – can add about 20% to the power of the machine. The advantage of the Quicksilver is that it has fewer power-supply failures, but the MDD (Dual 1.42) can give you 50% more power – Very nice machine both of the them. For most tasks like web-browsing (Omniweb), XBMC, VLC, Photoshop they are both pretty Great. For demanding programs like TenFourFox, MPeg Streamclip, or most anything with video, you will want the MDD.

Dual-Processors really are the way to go. If you are on a budget, a Dual Quicksilver is a terrific machine. Another option is to buy a machine with a single processor if it is otherwise in great shape, and then swap in a better one. That is what I did. My MDD is the very last one that was sold originally with only a single 1.25 GHz, but then I found a dual 1.42 and put it in – all for about $160.00. The main cost is shipping – if you can find a local one, that is best. AVOID Sonnet upgrade CPUs. They have no level 3 cache that makes a huge difference when running multiple apps. The only upgrades worth having are the Max Power 7448 upgrades – and those are complicated because if you have to reset the bios (PRam), you loose the CPU Firmware update. A last good budget option is the Digital Audio. It is older but the Dual 533 MHz can easily out perform the 1.25/1.42 Mac Minis and has the same Bus Speed and AGP slot as the Quicksilvers. So that is an option. To get the most for your money though, I serious recommend holding out for a Good Dual 1 GHz Quicksilver or a Dual 1.25/1.42 MDD. The last two in particular feel like new machines, when run with Tiger, and actually give all but the very last G5s a run for their money. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to find one.

PS a last option, while not a Mac, that everybody looking for an option should consider are the Android Micro PCs http://www.ebay.com/itm/261121655723 Dual Core comes with a controller/keyboard for under $70.00!

Sata isn’t really necessary, at least at first. 250 GBs are pretty cheap and G4s can hold 4 drives. Also, with a USB 2.0 port installed modern externals are no problem. Later, for about $40 you can land a PCI Sata card like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/400361985346

One like this is an excellent reliable choice: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270926255185 You just have to make sure that it is a late model Quicksilver or an MDD as the earlier G4s can only see up to 128 GB Hard Drives. An additional perk of OSX is that it can set up raids of multiple drives directly from the OS. So Having a primary system drive and then a mirrored back-up drive is great. Just don’t chance doing a striped-raid for anything you need to depend on!

It is not bad for a start and you can get a Dual CPU to install later (Dual 800 or 1 GHz). The only problem with that model is that you are limited to 120 GB Hard-drives, There are some PCI Cards Available (IDE, Sata) but they generally don’t let you boot from them. If you can get a deal, it could be a good “fixer-upper”.

You can install Leopard, but it will not work well. Even on the Dual 1 GHz, with great videocard, Leopard is sluggish and unresponsive, and very difficult to resolve permissions on. I would stick to Tiger, unless you absolutely need Leopard, and even then would put it on a secondary partition.

I’ve been using Leopard now for a couple months on my Quicksilver G4 Dual 800, with a non-core image video card, and still very happy — and it doesn’t seem any slower than Tiger was (and yet with a multitude of advantages). It is important though that you give it time to ‘break-in’ (build caches, indexes, etc) after installation, before assessing its performance (when I first tried it intermittently it seemed to me also to be a hog). It may also help that I have 1.25 GB of RAM — so check on that too when making the comparison, as Leopard does seem to use more memory.

There are a lot of ways to do without time-machine. Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper work just fine, and it actually possible to write your own applescript to back-up your ‘home’ folder periodically and routine run it from iCal. This works really well if you make an image (dmg) of your completed system setup and keep it on a different patrician. The crappy performance of Leopard (in my opinion) can not be justified on a PowerPC machine. Snow Leopard was the first to get the new system right.

Thanks again. Just bought the Quicksilver this weekend, and its in perfedt fit! so now, i wanna look for a SATA card to install it, as i have seen there are not to many options and they are a bit expensive, but i think is the best choice for internal storage.

I hope it works well! Just know you may need to keep an IDE drive for your system, as the majority of Sata PCI cards don’t allow you to boot from them. Keep an eye out for a Dual CPU, and you should be doing great.

i will take your advice and ill keep searching a DUAL for a good price! so thanks again.
The problem with the Storage is that the PCI cards that allow to boot the sistem from the SATA HDD are quite expensive, so i am thinking to buy any one cheaper by the moment and look for a deal for the “good” ones in the future.
could i buy any wich is compatible with OSx?
any especial?

This is a tough question, because at some point between the Digital Audio G4s and MDDs Apple deliberately made there PCI slots unable to boot using the normal protocols. There are literally hundreds of posts from G4 users who cannot get their sata drives to boot. So be prepared to have an IDE for the system and then use the Sata for storage. Satas are no more reliable than IDE and there is much wisdom in using Disk Utility to create a System DMG that can be rebuilt in the even of problems. So having a say 60 GB system drive on a reliable IDE drive (like Hitachi or Western Digital), and then having a Terabyte or so of Sata Backup is a good strategy. This, coupled with one of the backup programs and you are quite well protected against a system failure.

i have checked for hour the differnts solutions to adap SATA drives in ours powermac… lets see.
1. Sonnet and Firmtek cards seem to be bootable with out any problem, but they are quite expensive.
2. Some other brands could provide a bootable solution, but perhaps they require to be flashed, a few of them are Syba, Lycom and lacie. all depends of the main chip.
3. other solution is just buy some interface adapter from SATA to PATA, that are quite cheap, and look to work fine.

You might luck out with the PCI cards, but I wouldn’t bank on it. There are a lot of problems with booting PCI Sata cards. The interface adapters seem to be more reliable. You just want to make sure that they do not have some weird size-limits (2 TB??). Some of them do.
also, since they run through the normal IDE channel, there is always a chance that the motherboard’s 120GB limit might kick in. Your best bet is to get a 120 GB Hitachi Deskstar or Western Digital Scorpion Blue IDE to have as a system Drive and then have a cheaper Sata PCI (non-bootable) that you back the data up to with Carbon Copy Cloaner.

BTW. if you are worried about IDE being slower, it is really a non-issue if you have a secondary drive as a scratch-disc, and with a single CPU, you won’t come close to maxing-out the Ultra 66 you currently have. On my system, I have very little difference in speed from my Sata PCI and the Ultra 66 (can copy 50+ GB in about 13 minutes).

thanks. Should i ll look for a PCIx sata card or normal PCI size?
is the same the PATA and the IDE?
as i see is a good choice to buy also a USB 2.0 PCI card, thats true?
also i checked that is posible to get more PATA ports using a PCI card like sonnet, is it an interesting option?
cheers.

The 10.5 universal binary lets you right-click (ctrl-click) on a drive and run long or short S.M.A.R.T.
tests and display results in text file! Very nice.

I have a ton more tricks for keeping 10.5/10.4 ppc boxes alive if interested. I’m also playing around with
linux ppc distros as well, both dual-boot and in an emulator like ttp://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page The
very-lightweight Pupply Linux distros run almost tolerably well because the can run entirely in ramdisk.
They include newer flash-plugins and other items that might never be available for ppc mac osx 10.4/10.5.
Probably good for online banking if you encrypt entire virtual disk.

Peter: Very interested in your 10.6PPC project. If you need a tester, let me know! Am curious about the scope of this. If most 10.6 software is x86, are you going to work-in some Rosetta-In-Reverse thing to make compatibility? Very cool if possible.

I have a blog, it’s not intended for my Macintosh project, but I could set up a new one, and what I am trying to do is very hard to explain, but the main idea is that I take 10.5 code which has both intel and PPC language, then I am going to replace all the parts of 10.6 I can with 10.5, and re write the 10.6 intel code with PPC format. There is one big problem, there is ALOT of code to format, and I cannot do it bymyself, if some one has a working knowledge of PPC and Intel CPU code, I would be delighted for the help

I got rid of my Dev system when it became too tough to find modern PPC libraries, but you might seriously want to put this up in Macports. Also, contacting the people over at TenFourFox (they are masters of compiler hacking). Please do post however if you need a tester as I would be very happy to help out with that.

My thought exactly! I didn’t see a ‘reply’ tab on the original post above but it was recent, so hopefully. The biggest thing is that bit exchange from Risc to Cisc is relatively easy (with a predictable performance loss), but going the other way can be really tough to do well (i.e. Virtual PC, Playing original Xbox games on the 360, etc). Breaking up long-pipe, x86 instructions into even-lenth PPC code can be very inefficient and troublesome. And, having Snow Leopard is only useful if it allows the use of newer software not already available to 10.5. My guess is that this IS something that could be done well on a G5 (handles many ‘long-pipe’ instructions natively).

OR,

If it enables things like Time Machine to work on PPC, without the ridiculous overhead and glitches of Leopard – in which case this would be more like 10.5’Lite’.

Am Selling a very rare Newertech MAXPower 300Mb/Sec b/g/n PCI Card. In perfect working order. Comes with a disc with the drivers and upgraded antennas (now mounts directly to the card – no extension needed). Should work in any G4 running Tiger. Fastest WiFi you can get on a G4 – originally over $90.00. Am selling for $30.00 + shipping. Email me if interested.

having trouble finding power pc compatible dvd burners-purchased one rated for 10.4.6 and above but will not actually burn-freezes when it gets to burn section,lead in takes abnormally long,dvd shows blank after the fact so apparently nothing is happening

Using your old G4 iBook or G4 mini is also good for the environment. Why would you throw away a splendid computer (containing gold plated microchips etc.) as long as it still works? Even in 2013 there is no reason to dump your PowerPc Mac and replace it with a new shiny Intel, is there?
That’s why this forum is so good and interesting: helping each other to keep on using good old Powerpc Macs. Together we might help PPC to survive ’till 2020!

I like what you’re doing here.
I am an independent Mac technician and have built my business by picking up where Apple leaves off.
I run my business from a PowerMac ‘Firewire 800’ MDD G4 tower, with dual 1.42 GHz CPUs.
It runs a 23″ Cinema display and a 17″ Studio display, 4 hard drives, two Superdrives, Airport extreme and bluetooth.
I use my MDD for everything the business needs: research, parts ordering, email, bookkeeping, etc. It is also the helper for any PPC repair work that needs another Mac to boot with.
I have G5s and Wintel Macs as well but few computers ever made (by anyone) are as rugged and forgiving as the MDD. I prefer the MDD overall to the G5s; less power but far more reliable.

As a PPC user and a Mac tech I’m happy to have found your blog.
For a long time I have been the lone resource in the Portland area for PPC macs.
It’s great that I can now point my customers to your blog to keep their PPC Macs going for as long as possible.

I’m super excited to have found this website! I have a G4 1Ghz 17in model, and I love this thing to death! I’m eager to learn more from daily users of this fantastic system. 😀
Recently I’ve been using Toonboom Studio 4 as my animation software, but I’ve been trying for nigh on EVER to find any version of Flash Pro I can run on this. I can’t even find mention of a compatible version, since all I ever get when I do a search are links to articles about Flash Player, which is NOT what I’m looking for.

Does anyone here know off the bat what version, if any, of Flash Pro (or similar animation software, excluding toonboom) is compatible with my system?
Thanks!

@ Charles
Do you mean Flash Professional as contained in the Adobe Creative suite? Flash pro is for creating flash animation. If so the version you want is part of Adobe CS3, or the stand alone version is Flash Professional 9.0.0.463. This version is universal for PPC and Intel Macs.

Charles: Adobe CS4 Flash/Fireworks work Great on G4s-That is what I use and have had no problems. Have run Flash CS4 on a Digital Audio (Dual 533 MHz) G4 Powermac with standard Radeon 9000 with no issues.

Wow! This is a great site. I have a question for you. I have a Gigabit ethernet G4 running tiger. Mactracker says the clock speed should be 400 mhz but About This Mac indicates 1.8 ghz. How could this be?
The computer does everything I need real well. My cat likes to sit on top of it too.

No. Actually, it is possible to upgrade this version of Powermac to a Dual 1.8 GHz G4 processor. I know some people who made it even further and went for 2.0 or 2.5GHz G4 with aqua cooling. Well, they claim that it works like a charm, and they don’t feel any difference between using the latest Mac Mini i7 and their PowerPC G4. The problem is (as I’m not sure) that it doesn’t work on 166MHz bus, but on 133 or even 100MHz.

Hi! Thanks for making my old G4/Tiger a fantastic computer! Wish to make my little contribution by share a site with undreds of free icons: “http://365icon.com/category/icon-styles/page/5/” (yes its page 5, but from there its easy to browse…

Does anyone know if there is any option to enable TRIM in Leopard 10.5 for SSD drives? I’m using SanDisk 120GB SSD in my Powermac G4 and I can’t find anything to enable TRIM in OSX 10.5. I know that it was introduced in 10.6, but maybe there is any other way to make it work.

I also work, play on a powerpc running 10.5.8 SAD. very sad I lost my original iMac “lamp” on the road to Reno, NV. I dislike Libre want Apple WOrks6 back. Continue problems with permissions and Firefox plugins. I also play music on a “gumdrop” indigo best sound without external speakers. Question: need an external boot drive for Classic 9 to run Bugdom on the gumdrop< Its a slot loader and eats cds. Anyone can answer. And am glad this sit is operating!

Hi all, great to see the power pc enthusiasm here.;0)
Has anyone found a transition between osx10.5.x to 10.6.x to enable iTunes 10 or above to run on it so these great machines can speak with the modern gen of iPhone and iPad using ios6???

I simply wish to keep using my PowerPC g4 (1.5) as the sync/backup device rather than being pushed into the cloud, where my friend has seen an account breach already.

Hello Xenosage, found this off lifehacker dot com and came across your question similar to one i had once….

TRIM Enabler won’t work for all SSD users. You should not use TRIM Enabler if:

Your SSD doesn’t support TRIM. The only way to figure this out is to Google your SSD’s model number and find out if it supports TRIM. Note that the “TRIM Support” line in System Profiler does not tell you whether TRIM is supported, only if it’s enabled. So even if it says “No” in System Profiler, you should still Google your drive to see if it supports TRIM. Also note that you might need to update your firmware to get TRIM support, and you can find instructions on how to do that on the manufacturer’s web site.
Your SSD already has built-in garbage collection. TRIM and garbage collection are similar, but they are not the same thing. Unfortunately, for some reason, the Apple driver for TRIM seems to conflict with drives that have garbage collection built-in to the controller, so you won’t want to use it. It’ll actually decrease your drive’s performance.

just a little fyi…it saved me valuable time and headaches…my drive already had garbage collection so i didnt bother with TRIM.

I have a Mac g5 Power PC and I have the grey screen it doesn’t boot from the install disk
The battery is good had it tested at radio shack. Tried holding down alt at startup
It allows me to pick a drive but it goes back to the frey screen.. anybody know about this type of problem

I have successfully got flash working correctly on a powermac G5 ,from flash hack then changed info list and version list strings from 11.5 to 11.800.94 .All videos work correctly .Also works on a e-mac G4 but still a little choppy on that.

I did it on 10.5.8 on a powermac G5 and an emac g4.Prior to changing the numbers in the strings I could not see much of any video on either.It still shows as version 11.5 on adobe site when you check the version you have.But I can now use the power mac again,I’m not sure what happened but it worked .The e-mac is still a little choppy but at least you can see something .I changed the version numbers in the strings to 11.8.800 .94 along with the date.restarted it and presto.First download and install the hacked version of 11.5 for PowerPC.then on the flash icon after installed open to show contents open the folder .In the version.plist list and version list change the version numbers to 11.8.800.94 except the ones that don’t have the last two digits,change them to 11.800 and the date to just 1996.Do the same in the other info.plist”Make a copy of the flash before you start so if it doesn’t work you can replace it.

I must start by telling you that I have absolutely no knowledge of the world of mac. I am a CPM -> DOS -> UNIX -> Windoze -> Linux converted (There are a couple of other OS’s before CPM but I can’t remember their names).

I was given an old PowerPC G5 whose serial number is G84011NLPXD with OS X 10.3.9 and I was told to come ask you about my issues.

This mac has safari 1.3.2 and IE 5.2. I dont care about IE, but when I try to upgrade safari. apple.com wont’ even let me go to the download page. I can only guess its because of the OS version.

Also, the machine only has 512Mb RAM (???) but adobe CS works just fine.

My questions for you are:
1) What is the latest version of the OS X I can install?
2) Can I install this version without upgrading RAM?
3) Can I do the OS X version without perturbing all the installed software on it?

Hi there
First things first: you need to check your processor, you said is G5 so you might be ok, but anything higher than 800MHz can run the latest Mac OS X for PowerPC (10.5.8 – Leopard).
Yes you can install without upgrading your Ram but Leopard will run smoothly with at least 1GB Ram.
Yes all your applications should stays the same and you might get some new updates for some.

Answering the last two questions above >I believe you should get 10.5.0 then update the last update from apple to 10.5.8 which is the last update from apple for Powerpc .I found on Google Serviio for Powerpc but you need to first upgrade your computer.More memory also would help.Also get the other updates apple give you which will give you,I believe their is the last security and a few Java updates.Then don’t forget to get the hacked flash player you can find that on google also.Good luck

Hi guys, after a long time, here i am again. I have an iphone 5 and i would like to know if there is any alternative to run it on ppc? Because itunes dont run it on ppc (…) (only itunes 11.1 users). On windows pc it works, i think apple is being criminal defaulting your old users.

So, some of you have an overheated powerbook g4? I found 2 years ago a way to control manually the 2 fan powerbook and now i dont have these problems.

Having a problem with my PowerMac G5 Dual CPU. I have completely disassembled the PPC to give it a good clean (found enough dog hair in there to create an other complete Greyhound 😉 ), put everything back together and now all my fans are racing at max speed. Now I knew this would happen as I have also disconnected the CPU’s, so I downloaded Apple Service Diagnostics 2.5.8 and did the Thermal calibration and all other tests there were. Everything came out great and the 4 CPU fans came out fully calibrated and are turning at the right speeds. However, It seems that the other fans in there (2x HDD fan and 1x PC slot cards fan) are still racing top speed, making a bunch of noise, a fighter jet would be proud off! So it seems the ASD 2.5.8 did nothing to these fans. Also restarted the PROM by pressing the dipswitch on the logicboard, but to no avail. Does anyone have any idea as what to do, or am I doing something wrong? ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

well, tried recalibrating with both doors closed but to no avail. the cpu fans are the only ones that tend to be calibrated, the rest of the fans are still driving me mad, I have now disconnected them, but as you would expect, the temperature rises quickly. any other ideas?

well, tried the calibration with both doors closed, but to no avail unfortunately. only the cpu fans seem to be calibrated while all other fans are still racing at max speed and driving me crazy. any other ideas?

I think the ambient sensor or the drive bay sensor one of those might be bad be sure to run all the test on Apple calibration CD It should tell you if one isn’t working . Also look below I posted to you but went to wrong person.

Hi Dana,
Yes, I’ve done all the tests and ran the complete diagnostics, everything tested OK.
What surprises me though is that when looking to all the individual tests that ther ASD program only looks for the 4CPU fans an 1Rear fan, however there are 9 fans in total in my Machine (2x power circuit + 2x CPU inlet + 2x CPU outlet + 1x PCI slot bay (with the build in speaker) and 2x Harddrive bay) exept for the CPU fans, the calibration CD does not do anything to the other fans, they are not even listed in the individual tests. At the other hand though, all the Temperature probes are listed and tested OK (incl. the volt, amp and door sensor). So to me it looks like the CD does not support the other fans (as they are not even listed. Do I use the wrong ASD CD maybe?

Sorry to hear that . Did you run all the other test on the apple test disk.Cause it sounds like a bad sensor or something.A bad sensor could do that .If not then I don’t have any idea what else it could be.Or I read somewhere if the fan fins are real dirty that could cause it also.I just rebuilt a power-mac G5.What a nightmare after to Motherboards and 6 processors I finally got it running.

Actually the sensors I believe have something to do with the fan control. Have you tried a different hard drive. Could be a worn HD. If it is and running hot the sensor detects it and speeds up fans.ASD 2.5 is the one I use for diagnosis .Probably the same one you have.Do you have istat pro for powermac G5 .It gives you the temperatures of the cpus and also give a read out of rpm of the fans and other readouts. I would download it if I were you it might help pinpoint the problem. Just google isat pro for Power Pc.It would install in your dashboard.

that is the one I use aswell, the thing is that only the cpu fans are calibrated by this ASD, you can see this when it is calibrating, also you can not even find the other fans in the stand allone tests.

yes, as soon as i hit the on switch, the fans go to max rpm. Have a rpm lazer and tested the fans that istat says are running at about 50 and 70 rpm, well my rev meter tells me they actually turn at 3466rpm and 3872rpm. so that is way off. all the fur is gone, i have completly dismanteled the powermac and cleand every individual part i could find.

It is posable some got in the fan motors themselves .I think I would pick up another set on e-bay and try that. That is just a guess .I am not sure so please don’t hold me to that.
All your sensors work. I have two powermacs one runs real quiet . The other one the fans speed up as the more I do on the computer.Powermacs run hot also known as good space heaters.
Another possibility is the power supply . Maybe it’s sending too much power to those particular fans,just a guess or just faulty fans. I would try the fans first .
Another thing you could try is find out what the voltage is for each of the fast fans and test the power going to them to see if it where it is supposed to be. Maybe to much voltage is going to them.I’m not sure . I’ve seen fan sets on e-bay go pretty cheap. For Powermacs.

That also passed all apple test? Another thing is it could be a software issue. Have you ever tried to rest all in open firmware ? or reinstall OS X ? Or unhook one of the two HD disks . Something is faulty to make the fans fly.

Yes, the graphics card passed as well, everything passed the apple tests. I have disconnected my 2nd HDD which I use as a Time machine, but fans still race. I have also disconnected the connector that feeds all of the temperature probes, but still, nothing happens to the fans.
How do you restall in Openfirmware? Heard people talk about it, but never understood what they meant and how it is done…
Thanks for all the trouble Dana

To get into open firmware restart computer and hold down command option OF keys until the screen turns white with writing on it. Then in command line type reset-all and hit enter. Then type mac-boot and it will restart to desktop. If you have a windows key board type windows alt of keys

Have you heard of or use thepiratebay.sx ? I found Apple Service Diagnostic Disks It has ASD Dual Boot 2.6.3 Apple powermac late 2004 is listed under it.It might be a better diagnostic. You need Utorrent program to download it.It is 23.7 gigs.I’m downloading it right now to check it out.

im running a single 1.6 ghz g5 4gb of ram soon going to upgrade gpu but it works well for its age and is going to be my main machine for awhile does everything i want it to do
a little slow sometimes but for a low end g5 its not bad

Coming back after a year or so & bought a G5 1.8 Single, stuffed it full with 8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD hard drive; the next upgrades will be a Dual 2.7 GHz cpu (with proper logic board, etc.) and a better GPU (currently have a 5200 w/ 64 MB only).

I really wish Apple would have continued the PowerPC line; no other PC-style system runs as well given the same age as a PowerPC chip, in my opinion,at least :P.

After the first year that i came back to PowerPC i have 5 powermacs, one ibook g4 and one powerbook. love all of them, they are quite capable even with the modern standards. few days ago i was thinking in sell the two laptops and buy a macbook air, cause a need something quite light for traveling, perhaps the solution could be buy a 12″ powerbook and take away the cd reader and put a SSD inside. i let you know.

That’s is really nice idea, the PowerBooks G4 they are good machines and they still very capable of most of everything you need to do on a computer. 12’’ are good to travel and send us some pictures of your project installing the SSD.

I have a power mac g5 10.5.8. It is a great computer but it will not down load the driver (disc) for Epson XP-410 printer. It states that the “architecture” does not support… the printer states that it can handle the 10.5.8….

AS BRAND NEW For Sale LATE 2006 Model G5 2.3GHz PPC
If anyones interested I have a G5 2.5 – VERY LATE 2006 Model for sale – It was Purchased New and has spent all its life on sleep as a backup G5 – so all the fans, motors, Motherboard, HD have not ever been used – Offers see Ebat listsing:
Apple G5 2.3GHz PPC G5 Apple Mac G5 – late 2006 Model
Listing Number: 121258747068
Its the Best One You Could ever Buy ! FACT !

What needs to be done to achieve max internet speed (Safari) on my G5 iMac? I bought this machine in 2005 and have spent a few $ keeping it running (new power source, on/off button). It still runs apps fast on the computer, but once I go to the net, speeds vary. Sometimes it’s fast, most of the time it isn’t.

I keep my machine clean. I am using only 33GB of my 152GB capacity, running 10.5.8. RAM is maxed out at 2.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM.

I am running my CPU on the “Automatic” setting. Setting it to “Reduced” doesn’t help, and setting it to “Highest” causes the computer to head into sleep mode after about 4 minutes of super-fast internet speed.

Speedtest shows my connection speed to be around 18Mbps (AT&T).

I’ve been through all of the internet “5 ways to speed up Safari” etc routines, but I haven’t found anything to keep my speeds consistently high.

Honestly you might have to change your Apple Mac computer every 3 or 4 years (even Intel) to increase the speed or to update the system. Those MacBooks from 2008 can’t update to Mountain Lion and as far as I’m checking with Apple you can update the system twice with the same computer, after that is luck. 😀

I’d LOVE to buy a new Mac, but being out of work for 3 years, it’s tough. I have two kids in school, so any money I can scrape together for computer upgrades goes to their set-ups. That’s why I’m still using a 9-yr-old iMac. In some cases, I use my daughter’s laptop PC, as my OS just doesn’t work with certain web apps these days.

Looking for decent game demos and programs and info to make my old imac g4 computers run better and be more useful. I have 1ghz power pc iMac g4 with 1.5mb memory 2nd one is annimac 800mhzg4 768mb memory and an old emac g4 1ghz 256 memory I use my macs everyday to surf the internet and they are outstanding. With YouTube. DVD playback. Diablo 2 warcraft 3

I’m still using actively my G5 Dual 1.8 is a great machine, I love it – actually for everything what I’m also doing on my iMac Intel.

What I’m still missing is an program to syncronize my address book against my CardDAV server (Baikal).
Does anyone knows about such a piece of software? Because the Address Book on 10.5.8 doesn’t work with CardDAV.

Hi I wonder is any one can help, I am writing my first book and wonder if any one can recommend a program what will run on my Dual 2 GHz power pc G5 (os x10.5.8), currently I’m using Microsoft word and excel (11.6.6) and now that I’m 4 chapters in it’s getting a bit confusing with all the pages open for notes and info and chapters

Older versions of Pages run on PPC, and are very fine. However the app was not free when it was still PPC-compatible… 😦
A free and very similar alternative is Bean, no more supported but still running fine.

I’m posting this on a 15″ Powerbook running OS 10.4 that I got for chump change on eBay. I also have a dual CPU 1.8 ghz G5 tower someone GAVE me for free, running 10.3.9. My plans are to install Leopard to both machines, then re-partition and make both of them dual boot with Linux MintPPC. There is no reason the PPC platform should be abandoned; these machines hold their own even today, and with the addition of Linux Mint PPC they can even have a modern, up-to-date OS.

Reading all ——– you guys write in here is like you guys went through a brainwash or i don’t. i just feel no one in this hell ship is using a Powerpc cause if you were i don’t think you guys would had been writing all this crazy things i see in here. It’s totally true that i was scammed by this ———- apple company product cause ever since i brought this Apple Duo core pc i’ve been moving for one problem to another. you can’t even run any recent software all because the were made for intel based. Is’nt this a scam? why in first would they create a powerpc and later on ignore it existence this is totally scam. I just bought this Powerpc “can’t even believe that they still have this kind of shit in stock”. I’m so so ready to sell this son of the devil at the cheapest price possible it nerves me to see it lying without me being able to install: either because i need to upgrade or intel based… from one mother fucking problem to another

I’m currently using an iSight G5 iMac I bought from its first owner, who told me precisely how he used it and what work he did on it.

Since I sought as much information as I could about this hardware, I KNEW all of its limits :

– no OS earlier than 10.5 (still keeping to Tiger since it gives me all I need, and I don’t care for a machine telling me it’s time to back-up my hard drive…) ;
– no updates for Firefox nor Thunderbird, switched to TenFourFox and TenFourBird, since I don’t care for Safari and Mail ergonomic features ;

My G5 2.7 even after 9 years still looks almost new, including the liquid cooling system, but when I removed it, I could see leakage that was impossible to detect without removing the cpu’s from the water blocks. All 8 of the cpu water block screws had seepage stains and corrosion from the coolant. I’m glad I took it apart, I didn’t know until now it was leaking. I have several spare G5 macs, so removed the heatsink units from a 2ghz dual. After cleaning the 2.7’s cpu’s and using fresh Arctic Silver paste, I installed the heatsinks without a problem.

When running ASD 2.5.8 to calibrate the cpu’s to the new heatsinks, I had a problem. It kept failing, reporting that the ‘intake’ fan was the wrong speed, however the fan was fine. I traced it down to having the water pump disconnected, and I guess the ASD software didn’t have a message for a disconnected water pump. So, assemble the system normally with the air cooling heatsinks, hang the cable out that goes to the LCS water pump, and let the pump run during thermal calibration. Once the cpu’s are calibrated to the new heatsinks, you will never need the water pump again, since successful calibration only needs to be done once.

The 2.7 is now running great on air! Idles at 45-50c, and under full load during benchmarks, with cpu set to ‘highest’ it never went over 78c.

I call the water to air transplant on the dual 2.7ghz G5 a complete success. I’m sure there are many other PowerPC fans out there that will now be able to save their aging LCS equipped G5 2.5 and 2.7 macs from dying a terrible rusty death.

Now if only we could find a solution for the G5 Quad I have.. its still on water cooling.

I’m happy to see there is a resource for people still using PPC macs here 🙂

Anyways…I have a dual 1Ghz PPC G4 which I’m reviving and would like to use one of my firewire audio interfaces with. My G4 meets all the minimum requirements with the exception of it not being a G5 PPC. Is there a way to trick the computer into thinking it is a G5 or upgrading the computer so that my audio interface will work?

I use to look around for tricks to make using my PPC Mac easier, and I found one on this link : . The problem is it uses a script written through the Terminal.app and I’m not so clever using the command line interface. So I looked in AppleScript resources and I wrote the following script in the editor :

It works with all externally droven volumes, hard disks and DVDs, including FireWire target volumes (i.e. globally volumes displayed in the lower part of the left panel of the Disk Utility window).

Thus this script doesn’t work with volumes shared through FireWire networking.

By the way, FireWire networking is a kind of Easter egg which very few people tell about, I use to connect my iMacs and my G4 PowerBook through FireWire to share folders between this FW local network — I rather trust wired networks than wireless ones and I am not a fan user of Internet connecting through AirPort.

I use to look around for tricks to make using my PPC Mac easier, and I found one on this link : . The problem is it uses a script written through the Terminal.app and I’m not so clever using the command line interface. So I looked in AppleScript resources and I wrote the following script in the editor :

It works with all externally droven volumes, hard disks and DVD, including FireWire target volumes (i.e. globally volumes displayed in the lower part of the left panel of the Disk Utility window).

Thus this script doesn’t work with volumes shared through FireWire networking.

By the way, FireWire networking is a kind of Easter egg which very few people tell about, I use to connect my iMacs and my G4 PowerBook through FireWire to share folders between this FW local network — I rather trust wired networks than wireless ones and I am not a fan user of Internet connecting through AirPort.

Hey guys!
I have a question to the group. I am wanting to find a larger Hard Drive for my G5 [7,3 Dual 2.0 original HD 160G]. I have worked a lot with OWC for upgrades but they don’t seem to stock compatible HDs anymore. I tried a terabyte Western Digital but it seems the clockspeed is too fast [6Gbs] for the Mac to read. It was supposed to be backwards compatible but…
The Tech I talked to said the drive should have worked but it seems 3Gbs is the fastest it will talk to [must slow it down to 1.5 Gbs].

Does anyone know of another source other than eBay?
Happy 3rd Anniversary!
Billy

Look up the specs on your drive, and the jumper positions for it. There should be one to jumper it to sata 3.0 GB/s. If you do that, it should be able to work in the G5. Also, try the drive in the ‘lower’ drive bay. Some 6 GB/s drives will work in the lower bay, but not the uppper.

I am currently using an iSight 20″ G5 iMac in which I have splitted the hard drive into three volumes (2×114 GB and one 5 GB – the last one due to trying and giving up a Linux installation). On one 114 GB volume, I have Tiger 10.4.11, and on the other one Leopard 10.5.8 — since my old scanner can work only with Tiger, and my 4th generation iPod Touch only with Leopard 😉
When using Leopard, the default screen setting is millions colours, I use to set it manually to thousands colours. Is this usefull to save resource usage and improve screen displaying speed, or not ? Is there an easy way to set the default screen setting to thousands colours ?
Thank you for any help.

Hey Soooo…. The other day I bought a new ibook g4 well new to me I was so happy to get another Ibook, So when I bought it the computer had a copy of leopard 10.5.8 on it so when I got it home I decided to format and put a fresh copy of leopard on it so I got almost done the installation if leopard then it comes up a warning that the disc could be damaged and installation failed but I just recently used the very same disc on a old imac and it loaded fine with no hiccups. So i put the disc in again for a 2 times the charm but it failed this time it almost made it all the way through the installation it seems to stop at a different place every time I try after a while I got fed up so I shoved my old tiger disc in and it took the first try, Tiger is nice and all but leopard has the compatibility I like do you happen to know whats happening? I tried the leopard disc again on a different mac and it took fine so i am at a lost. I apologies for my grammar does indeed suck and long live Power Pc Btw My Ibooks Specs < 1.07 Ghz Ppc G4, 1.25 Gb Ram, 60gig Hardrive

Leopard installation requires at least a 867 Mhz G4 PowerPC Mac and 512 Mb RAM, so your iBook seemingly meets these requirements.
Be sure your Leopard install disc is a “box disc” i.e. the black and purple one with a big X centered on the hole (NOT the grey one since it complies only with one type of Mac computer).
Be sure you’ve saved all the data from your HD that you could need afterwards on an external HD.
After putting your install disc in your iBook, open “Disk Utility” (the top menu will be displayed after you have chosen your language). Select the iBook’s hard drive and click the “test drive” button.
Following the results of the HD testing, you could need to repair it (button in same window) or either discard it if no repair is possible.
Furthermore, if you could connect an external HD through FireWire and install Leopard on it while keeping Tiger on the internal HD, and boot your iBook from the external HD when you need Leopard. Seems acrobatic, but you could use your iBook at your own convenience until you’ve found what’s with the internal HD.
Good luck !

I was meaning that you can keep Tiger on the HD of your iBook and if you happen to need Leopard, you can install it on an external HD connected to the iBook through a FireWire cable and boot from the external HD when you need the compatibility with Leopard without changing anything of the iBook’s HD.

I have an iMac with G5 processor. I have Safari and Firefox installed. I can no longer access you tube, apple or even Firefox’s own page. I am able to search google and go on to websites like BBC. I have tested my internet connection and its all fine, so why can’t I access certain sites? The problems are on both Safari and Firefox. I tried downloading Tenfourfox and that’s even worse. That wont even let me go to google.

I have a new blog going right now here, trying to keep the PowerPC alive. It’s all about playing games on the PPC. I’m including games that other PPC gaming sites haven’t talked about. http://gamingonpowerpc.blogspot.com/

The ONLY browser you should be using on a G3, G4, or G5 mac, is TenFourFox. Its currently up to version 31.1.1 and is the only up to date browser for powermacs.

If you cant access those pages, ask your ISP, because unless you have some sort of blocking software installed on your mac, you should be able to access those pages from anywhere. Keep in mind that youtube wont work properly with powermacs because you cant use a modern version of flash. Instead, use a separate youtube app like YouView for powermac.

If you have installation discs for previous versions of OSX, you can install what you like.

I’ve pretty much got everything from 10.4 and up for a variety of Macs from G4 to dual Xeon.

Sadly, Apple no longer support or offer historic versions of OSX, and last I asked I was advised by phone support to try e-bay; was trying to resurrect a dual G5 XServe.

You can find full installation images around and about on the net, however, without too much difficulty, but although not the most legit route, it may be the only viable one for most given these are no longer officially commercially available.

Hello PowerPC users !!
I got this equipment powerbook G4 and I have a problem with updating the flash player for incompatibility processor … am beginner and still walk to discover … if they could give me any tips regarding this problem … thank specifications these are from my machine …

End of the year – clean-up of your powermac > give it a fresh start in 2015!
========================================================
Is your iBook getting slow? No problem! Reinstall it from scratch. First of all make sure you did a recent backup using TimeMachine (if you are running 10.5 Leopard) or just dragging and dropping all your important data to an external drive (make sure you don’t forget to backup mails, etc.).
OK, it is a bit of a job, but then you can take out that great shining Leopard-dvd out of its beautiful purple box, or – if you want to use Tiger – take it from it’s black box.
Insert the dvd into the drive, startup the Mac holding the C-button and of to the installation procedure. In one of the first screens you see at startup of the cd, the menubar is appearing at theta of the screen. There you can select the app “disc utilities” to format the hard drive: it is radical (so make sure you have really backed up all of your data!!!), but then again your Mac will have a really fresh start.
Go to the setup procedure. All the details are in https://macpowerpc.com/powerpc-u/#comment-379
It takes more than an hour on an 1.33Ghz iBook G4, but no problem: in the boxes are beautiful books that are worth the effort of reading them again. There are beautiful and interesting…
Finishing a total setup, your iBook is ready for a fresh start. Happy 2015!

Hello everyone. This web site is a great resource for anyone interested in PPC Macs. I just recently took the plunge and became the proud owner of a Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5Ghz with 16Gb RAM and 400Gb disk after my clunky old Compaq PC died. Needless to say, I haven’t been disappointed with the performance on this venerable machine. It is extremely quick. and I have been able to get pretty much all of my applications working including Evernote and my password manager (Password Gorilla). I love Office Mac 2011 and PhotoShop on this machine as well. With a little research I was even able to get it to talk to my new HP printer using an older set of drivers. The machine may be 9 years old but it runs rings around many PCs.

Gray screen with Apple logo and spinning thingy – Searching for suggestions…after running several tests as suggested by Apple and others, unplugging all peripherals, powering up iMac G5, 10.5.8, Power PC, worked great. I plugged in, one at time, Internet, hard drives (one for data and one for time machine), everything still worked great. Then I tuned into radio station through iTunes for minute. Then closed everything and shut down by using Menu command. When I powered up, gray screen and Apple Icon, fans running high are back. Anybody else have this problem? Guess it’s better than having to replace mother board, hard drive(s), etc. But am curious to know if this is just a coincidence or something going on with iTunes? Running iTunes 10.6.3. Thanks for your time and sharing your experience…

Hi. Before you go to all the trouble, and headache of un then reinstalling I tunes, I’d like to suggest one of my favorite sites, http://www.oldapps.com. Not only do they have a kick ass forum, but you can post a request for an old app that you don’t see after searching, and they have lot’s of great apps!

Hi all I recently acquired an eMac G4 running 10.5.8. It calls itself a powermac 6,4 in About My Mac. I am totally new to PowerPC (I’ve used intel machines as long as I can remember with the exception of an IBM but that’s another story) and I’m not a huge fan of AMD but that’s also another story.

I was wondering what are the practical applications for such a computer in this day and age. I just don’t know what I can do with it TenFourFox doesn’t do flash or I can’t get it to work right so it seems that most online video is not an option. But I know there has to be some real use for this computer. It’s in excellent shape with the exception of a now missing drive door (I took it off because the damn thing was annoyingly noisy), and I am pretty sure this is one of the seemingly rare models that never actually made it into a classroom. So far I’ve only replaced the cd/DVD-blah drive and it seems to not like my adding a second 1GB ram stick (although I do need to try to figure out how to test ram sticks aside from swapping of course; there really has to be another way to test them.). Anybody who has some real tips and actual usable information would be greatly appreciated. I don’t have the original install discs which really saddens me but I did acquire some original OS X discs that are for a Mac mini 3,1 and I have the discs for my early 2011 MacBook Pro which sadly doesn’t quite qualify for the new extension program though it gave me all of those same problems, including sudden pc death, of those macs that do qualify. So I am not totally without OS X re-install media.

HELLO EVERYONE.. my name is Ron and i am a ppc user, i use my mac for creating music and now find myself at a cross road. my ppc cant accept logic pro x and its so sad that they are trying to put out to pasture great machines.. do anyone have any suggestions?

hello guys i got my brothers Ibook G4 it has good condition and works also well , it is running on it 10.4 tiger … i`m normally windoz user i never used MAC in my life… so i`m new). i need some support or help of you guys where i can download the leopard 10.5.8 for free could you give a link?? best regards

hello all Mac PPC users,
Be carefull about “free download” of proprietary software from odd websites : further illegal in most occurrences, it can be a very bad trick since you might download many items that could ruin your files and programs on your HD.

Hi Everybody . I was seeking for issue found on os x Leopard (PPC)
when I Wrote ** man -k *anything* **
The result is
Nothing apropriable (or something like its)
IN Every param – every command – The message is always the same .
Any suggestions?

Hello, Can anyone help
I have an old G5 Pro Power Mac running 10.4.11 which I purchased some years ago as reconditioned, was working fine until last week. I now have the deadly grey screen with Apple Logo and spinning wheel! Have tried most things. DiscWarrior tells me the hardware is mostly OK and and has repaired most files and folders, but still the spinning wheel appears. I’ve tried to do an Archive & install but no luck, so I am looking at a clean install. Unfortunately I don’t have the discs and have had to purchase originals of 10.4. My big problem is that I have NOT backed up what was on the machine, is there anyway of getting the information off at all?? 😦

Hey I recently picked up an old 20″ G5 ALS 2ghz for a great price and it’s now my main computer 🙂 Anyway just wanted to share that I had some trouble finding reliable places for some of the apps that many may need for their PPC mac (specifically G5 OSX 10.5.8) so I decided to host many of these on my own site so they could be reliably be downloaded by other users.
Feel free to have a gander! I currently have 18 apps hosted many of which I feel are essential. http://www.redfan.eu

Keeping the PPC Mac alive is a great thing and tbh this iMac works just as great as it did back in the day and I have no problem using it for all my modern needs 🙂

I like your site and I am happy to see it running daily and that people still have interest in these cool machines.

I lost any respect I had with Apple when they swapped from powerpc. The only way the price was justified was that the ppc’s were the pedigree, not so much the name, in my opinion at least.

A while ago I picked up a W8 series powerbook G4 with a slowly dying display but I am going to replace it soon. I’m even using an ibook G4 right now. These are neat machines and always wanted one or the other. I managed to find both! I even use the iBook for work and I have never had a problem. I have little use of a modern mac as I like to build my own machines to my own spec and I run linux mainly. I wish I could run linux on these machines but Leopard isn’t much of a slowdown. I can upgrade bash and SH or install fsh or psh for a shell to fix some security issues.

I have a G+ and twitter opened up for ppc users. @PowerPCToday1 and +PowerPC Today. If you follow be sure to make some posts on G+ and keep up with twitter!

My iBook G4 1.33 512MB was running slow. I bought 1GB ram for less than 15 dollar and it’s very fast now. Tiger is starting up in less than half a minute. That’s a lot faster than my wifes iMac 2011 4GB who takes at least a few minutes to start up in El Capitan. The difference between Tiger and Capitan is small in terms of lay-out: the 2D-Dock is almost the same 🙂
The iBook is fine for receiving Mails, surfing the net (using Tenfourfox-browser), writing texts (in AbiWord) and managing my photos (in iPhoto). The only thing I am struggling with is iTunes. I have got an iPod Nano 7G and it seems to be impossible to get it talking with iTunes 9. iTunes 6 could see the iPod and tried to synchronise but it seems it did not write the correct database format on the ipod, so without result… Did anyone find a solution to that one?

You’re not going to believe this! After hours of tinkering with bash and Apple scripts I’ve actually managed to get the latest version of the Minecraft Launcher to run in OpenJDK 7. All it needed was a simple argument to launch graphically via X11: “-Djava.awt.headless=false -jar” , otherwise OpenJDK will attempt to launch in CLI mode. Despite my best efforts the game it’s self would not actually launch due to a lack of a compatible LWJGL library. Upon further investigation the launcher actually downloaded the Linux PPC version of the lib. I’m not experienced enough to compile such a library nor have I yet tried. But regardless I think if we can get this working Minecraft might be making a comeback on PowerPC Macs.

I am rocking my ibook g3 clammy everyday! It is the 300Mhz blueberry running os x tiger and it works fine, i am just looking out fore some app that can convert video files, not mpeg streamclip coz its deadslow on my mac, anyone got any idea??

I use VLC-player. It plays every video format, no need in converting videos. Conversion is indeed very slow on our old machines, so that’s why it might be better to avoid it. Older versions of VLC-player are still available for download at the Videolan-website.
The old version of the freeware Video Monkey works on Powerpc and is converting different formats, but I am not sure if you can still find it somewhere now.

Today I discovered SmillaEnlarger, a fine app for enlarging pictures of my old digital camera (which had a very low resolution of 1.2MP…). Smilla enlarges those pictures without blowing up the pixels. There are several settings and it can take hundreds of pictures in its joblist. It is PPC-compatible. 🙂

Hi everyone. I just bought a PowerBook G4 1.67 15″ DLSD/HR for $50.00. That’s the Hi-Res model that was on the market for 3 months before they pulled it for the intel models. It’s rare. it was a gamble, I bought it sight unseen so I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Here’s the breakdown. Machine is running, the new battery is detected but not charging. One ram slot is dead and the screen goes black while still running. I reset the PRAM and SMC, that did nothing. There’s a Hi-Res logic board on ebay, should I try to save this machine?

Your best bet would be to replace the logic board (if you know what you’re doing). You SHOULD DEFINITELY try to save this machine as it is ultra rare. Put a little work into it, and it will shine in all it’s glorious PowerPC G4 beauty.

I have a tip. For PowerPC internet use with (preferably) OS X Tiger and up, enable internet sharing on your latest modern Intel Mac and connect that Mac via Thunderbolt Ethernet (or Thunderbolt FireWire) to your PowerPC Mac. The Intel Mac acts as a security filter and blocks out modern web threats whilst allowing your PowerMac to surf safely.

If anyone needs to know how to fix the wifi/ethernet crashing the computer after a minute then just go into network, go to either airport/ethernet, then click one the second tab. Where it says IPV6, click disable. Hope this helps someone, I’ve been looking for a few days. 🙂 Best of luck to you all! My PowerBook G4 is still going strong for music production, and just general music listening with Spotify and iTunes 10.

I got Minecraft 1.6 running on my PowerBook G4 with Leopard. It has 2GB ram and a Mobility Radeon 9700 (128MB vRAM) so it performs quite well on about medium settings. If anyone needs to know how contact me! email: hpellerin@myfairpoint.net

I noticed that ten four fox browser is still up and going for ppc computers of all flavours. But what’s drove me from the internet on my g4 laptop is the lack of any antivirus. Has anyone found one powerpc for 2018? The browser works fine but since even avast has abandoned us what is available? Still I use my computers for a lot more than the internet. ie reading Books, watching Video & DVDS,playing Hoyle Card games, for bookkeeping, and finally, writing stories and songs.